today, they are flying airplanes over iraq into syria to help one of their allies. you mention that everyone at every level has talked to al- maliki about that and you will continue. what is his response when you say you would like him to cooperate with us in our interests? what does he exactly say in response to our efforts? >> the response is typically to express concern about the events in syria. they are very clear that both the prime minister and other iraqi officials have no interest in saying the current government continue, that they are no friends of that regime, that regime has been hostile to them in the past and allow terrorists to come into iraq and been harmful to democracy and institutions and the people in iraq. they are interested in seeing that there is a clear outcome in syria that protects their interests. there have been a little trouble seeing that. >> what about the aerospace issue? why are they continuing to cooperate with iran and that effort? what can they tell you specifically regarding that? what is their response? >> they say engage in all parties and th

president obama to serve as the u.s. ambassador to iraq. if confirmed, i will deepen our collaboration with iraq and its people and secure our vital interests. i look forward to collaborate with you and your staff and encourage you to visit iraq to see the important work we're doing there. thank you for the opportunity to testify today. i welcome your questions. >> thanks very much. can you share with me in answer to the question i raised about the iranians using iraqi airspace in order to support assad? what have we been doing -- what have you been doing, if anything, to limit that use? >> i have personally engaged in this repeatedly at the highest levels of the iraqi government. my colleagues in baghdad have engaged in this and every single visitor representing u.s. government from the center -- three cell -- 3 visitors have raised it with the iraqis to make it clear we find this unacceptable and we find it not helpful and detrimental to the region and to iraq and of course to the syrian people. this is something that needs to stop and we are pressing and will continue to press until

desperately needb help because they are coming and back from iraq and afghanistan and they can't find work. and and so we come out of the recession and the recovery way a higher percent of unemployment and especially veterans under age 24 have an even higher percentage of unemployed, and so what we have here is a piece of legislation to give an unemployment cushion for veterans for at least a year until they can find employment in the private sector, and this is employment to do things that we need since so many of our national resources such as parks, such as emergency responders, such as firefighters, such as police need help. look at all the unfunded things that are deteriorating in the national parks. this would be an opportunity to employ those veterans and employ them up to a year. everybody knows that this makes common sense and it's the right thing to do, and what's happening is the folks on that side of the aisle because we are in an election and because this happened to be a proposal coming out of the white house and is brought to the floor by this senator from florida, they

the u.s. security council for not being forthcoming. remember that there was the war in iraq. there was a strong push on the part of the europeans, especially britain, germany, and france not to go to the security council because they saw iran going the way of iraq. going to the security council would be a mandate for war. countries like france had been at odds with the united states over iraq and did not want to be at odds with the u.s. over iran, but wanted to stop the united states from doing what it did to iraq. we had a dramatic event where the foreign ministers of germany, in october, 2003, struck an agreement where iran would embark on uranium enrichment. it is the ultimate in dual use technology. it had the united states stepping back and britain, germany, and france became known as the eu3. in november of 2004, iran went along with this saying they would also be a part of uranium enrichment. but he doesn't buy, eu3 was submitting a proposal to iran promising help for its program. this is where you get another big in theme. the eu3 was unable to do anything because the and t

not only destabilizes syria but destabilizes lebanon, iraq, jordan and potentially turkey. the opportunity is to move with countries in the region like turkey and jordan and others in iraq who are waiting for u.s. leadership, and to bring an end to that regime sooner because we have seen the longer it goes the more people die, the more sectarian it is. the more it upsets the neighborhood. in destabilizing the neighbor the question is how to do it. we can talk about it. i think the way you do it is to empower those people who are fighting for their future and give them the weapons so that they can topple the regime themselves. but the mindsets that any president needs to have is this is not just a single crisis management situation. we handled tunisia, libya, egypt and syria. this runs the risk of a meltdown in the middle east. it is a strategic challenge but also a strategic opportunity to try to further emphasize and establish yet another example where sunni and shiite and other minorities are working together to define a common future which is what the middle east needs becau

continues. every day hundreds of people in afghanistan, pakistan and iraq are killed. would it not have been better to have a more precise analysis and find out the true in-depth reason of the events of september 11th, make those findings transparent to the populations and the nations across the world, and then have a response in unison? of course the expense would have been much less. do you know how much has been spent during the afghan and iraq war? >> a considerable amount of money. but let me ask you this, mr. president. if nearly 3,000 iranians had been murdered in the way that americans were on 9/11 in tehran, how would you have reacted to the country that you believed had done that? >> translator: so you're saying that the country of afghanistan was at fault? was responsible? so you're seeing the responsible party as a whole nation? >> i think it is inarguable that al qaeda and osama bin laden's men, who worked for him, were training in afghanistan. so afghanistan was certainly knowingly harboring terrorists who were training to commit atrocities. >> translator: i believe that y

bombing skills from iraq and elsewhere have slipped into syria and have joined in the fight against syrian government. we can't independently confirm any of this. the number of people needing assistance has doubled since july since 2 and a half million. the office of secretary of state -- i should sadie fence. the consulting firm had the innovation. sounds like this is getting worse. >> it is getting worse. we have been talking about this for months now. it is going to get worse. at what point is this wrong? we are talking about this if chemical weapons are used nuclear weapons or things like that come to play. if there's an open use of terrorist groups with al qaeda something like that. frankly shy of that what we see here is between two branchs of islam and we see a civil war. i don't see the reason for the united states to come to the ground and intervene. >> i think the big picture question we are trying to answer is were we or others to intervene would that outcome be better than what they would get without our input? >> that's exactly right. as a close friend of mine who is in

china or russia or iran or iraq. it is unbankable to let 20 or 30,000 troops to stay in iraq. we had the hostages in i ran and we had the two helicopters crashed. that was talked about. if something of that nature presents itself, i woke will work to solve the problem. >> [inaudible] how do think the palestinian problem can be solved? >> i am torn by two perspectives. i have had one for some time which is that the palestinians have no interest in establishing peace and that the pathway to peace is almost unthinkable to accomplish. it is said the palestinians should set up their own country. the conflict between israel and the west bank is right there. that is about 9 miles from tel aviv to the west bank. the other side of the west bank , the iranians would want to do to the west bank what they did through lebanon. they want to bring armaments into the west bank. israel, of course, would have to say that cannot happen. we have to keep the iranians from burning in weapons. -- from bringing in weapons. that means they will control the border between syria and jordan and this new palesti

threat. those who have occupied iraq and afghanistan were threatening iran on a daily basis. i do not believe that we are under any special conditions now from those sources, but the fact that the world -- historic period in the world is coming to an end, an era during which power has set the first and last word. those holding the keys to power have set the fate of many populations. that era is coming to an end. >> the big catalyst for protests at the moment in the middle east was the video that was released which mocked the prophet muhammed. as a result, there was an attack as you know on the american embassy in benghazi in libya. the ambassador christopher stevens was murdered. do you condemn the attack which caused his murder? >> translator: fundamentally, first of all, any action that is provocative offends the religious thoughts and feelings of any people, we condemn. likewise, we condemn any type of extremism. of course, what took place was ugly, offending the holy prophet is quite ugly. this has very little or nothing to do with freedom and freedom of speech. this is the weakne

council, the americans were telling us unless we authorize the use of force against iraq, we would be on the wrong part of history. and it turns out to be that there was no anthrax in that file. >> rose: okay. a program note the prime minister mario monti was scheduled to be on our program, he will be on our program tomorrow night. tonight the prime minister of russia. captioning sponsored by rose communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. >> rose: sergey lavrov is here, he has served as russia's foreign minister since 204. he is in new york for the united nations general assembly. the conflict in syria is an essential focus. president obama spoke about the issue earlier today. >> in syria, the future must not belong to a dictator who massacres his people. if there's a cause that cries out for protest in the world today, peaceful protest. in a regime that tortures children and shoots rockets at apartment buildings. we must remain engaged to assure that what began with citizens demanding the rights does not end in the cycle of sectarian violence. together w

from that part of the world, we pulled out of iraq, we pulled out of afghanistan, and iran is continuing on with the nuclear program and our critics say our allies do not trust us. >>guest: that is false. partners and allies have responded effectively and promptly when we asked them to protect our facilities. >>chris: well, it took three days in cairo. >>guest: what happened in cairo was not sufficiently oh bust when president obama picked up the phone and together to president morsi, and right away things changed. what happened is the authorities in egypt have been robust in protecting our facility, not just in cairo but elsewhere in the country. president morsi has calmed for calm. we saw the same thing in yemen, in libya, tunisia. >>chris: so why ask all nongovernmental personnel to leave tunisia and sudan? >>guest: but are not asking all nongovernmental personnel. >>guest: we assess the security conditions necessity this, we have asked temporarily family members and nonessential personnel depart. we do that all over the world when security circumstances warrant. it is shor

richmond on iraq because they feel that i mean right there is a best time to pressure america for accepting that red line if america accept that red line which they have not accept that they are not their rights that they redline is iran having basically the actual weapons but in case they decide to attack to me they will not achieve their objectives they're not they don't have the capability to attack iran at most they can attack by missiles and planes to places . which that there would not. be around. basically not to pursue its nuclear program effectively put it that way that can that can bring the radicals of iran radicals in terms of. nuclear program those who are all going for nuclear weapons in other words that would be the best. case scenario for them that is the idea tack. can basically. to me. strengthen the hands of the radicals ones that are. what the absolute majority of the grainy and pundits and the elites of data once the weapons to me what they want is a capability. that seems to thought the two thousand and three that iran doesn't want the weapons you don't wants

the persian gulf. focusing mostly iraq. they speak about tensions between saudi arabia and iran. -- for the fall semester. and i would just mention in the way of an advertisement that we will be having our next program on october 23. it will be on jordan. jordan, i think it put a title out there of -- in the cross hairs again. we are fortunate to have the vice-president for studies at carnegie endowment for national peace. and a very good personal friend who will be coming as well as dr. kurt ryan, an associate of the latin .ppellati tonight as we gather, i always express my appreciation to the exxon mobil corp., which is a donor. it gives us substantial contributions each year to put on these programs, pay for expenses. and bring some of these guests from out-of-town. i think of them. tonight, we are going to focus on oil and politics in the persian gulf. and really focus on the prominence of this area and the energy market. the persian gulf area as 60% of the world's proven oil reserves. and 40% of the world's proven gas reserves. in fact, six of the top 40 in the countries in

way in the world we would have invaded iraq and my god is it a different world if that's the case. >> stop right there if you will. i deal with that in the book. just to set briefly the framework, i think al gore would have been much more knowledgable and attentive about al-qaeda. i believe for the sake of the fiction that the cia. i think under those circumstances, al gore would have pushed hard against iraq. up not only would have had republicans urging it, you would have had many democrats who believed that sadaam had weapons of mass destruction. >> who cares he didn't attack us. >> uh-uh. i'm not arguing. >> there's no way vice president gore would have been that irrational. no way. >> chenk that's -- you're not listening to me. i agree with you. you're hitting a straw mat. i am suggesting that the politics would have been much tougher. vice president lieberman who would have been vice president would have been as anxious to go into iraq as dick cheney. he was one of the leading hawks of either party and so the picture i paint is not al gore going into iraq, no. he said at the

but first in the early '80s deciding to attack the nuclear reactor in iraq not popular in the u.s. but we did it and we were condemned by the state department and the when years later people appreciated that decision that he took in 1981 was for the benefit of the american people. the american army invades iraq could go win and in 19731 and jewish declared it the holiest day of the year. during the yum! kippur war. i thought i knew everything before the book but i've learned a lot with reset -- research. 1973 with the egyptian and civilian army is caught us by surprise, we almost lost the war. it is not the war the fight yen the it now or afghanistan but it means we are out of the game. we were to the point* first day of the war the state department sent a telegram to the embassy. there was a message from kissinger telling us israelis, wait. hold your horses. do not take action because kissinger will move forward. at that time they egyptian and civilian armies were already on the way to destroy the jewish state. the prime minister at the time was afraid to take a preemptive attack

. >> people will say this is very reminiscent of iraq. you have a bad guy who is believed to be in the process of either developing or has wmd. we know what happened with iraq, that that intelligence was flawed. can america, can the world, risk another flawed military action if it turns out ahmadinejad is actually telling the truth? >> first of all, it's very different from iraq. i personally never saw any intelligence that was at all persuasive on the nuclear issue. i wanted the inspectors to go in there for a simple reason. when the first gulf war was over, we began an accounting of all of saddam's weapons of mass destruction, which mostly consisted of chemical warheads and chemical and biological agents. in 1998, when he kicked the inspectors out, there were two biological agents and two chemical agents, a substantial quantity unaccounted for. we bombed, the u.s. and uk. after 9/11, i thought it was important for the inspectors to go in, try to find out whether we had destroyed that or not. we later learned when he was deposed that it was destroyed in '98 and he didn't want anybody

geography got its revenge in the mountains and deserts of iraq and afghanistan. because a transformative moment for me, was imbedded with the first battalion of the fifth marines, in kuwait in march 2004, and we were making an overland journey of several hundred miles to fallujah, and fallujah was not yet in the news. the battle was still a month away, the first battle of fallujah, and all we did was transport one marine battalion from one place to another. no fighting in between. wasn't particularly dangerous. but the logistics were absolutely immense. gas stations, mountains of water bottles. a tool kit. meals ready to eat. it was just an immense logistical exercise to get men and women and materiale from northern kuwait to fallujah without any fighting, and there you saw how distance mattered. how you just couldn't defeat distance through the latest technology. >> i think it might be interesting for the audience if you'd personalize the story of iraq a little bit, and talk about your own views. this is a place you knew, that you traveled in, in the 1980s and the time of saddam hussein

believe you're somewhere off the coast of bermuda-- (laughter). you are bordered by iraq, syria-- >> yes. >> jon: israel and saudi arabia. >> egypt. >> jon: and egypt. so how are things? (laughter) >> we've seen better days. >> jon: you run a constitutional monarchy. >> that's right. >> jon: in the middle of the largest democratic i don't want to say uprising but transition in your part of the world. what happens to you? how do you manage that without being deposed like some of these other countries have had to deal with? >> jordan is part of the arab spring also. but the arab spring means something different to every country. different countries are going through different paces. you know, i keep saying that whatever the middle east is going through is going to be something that will take five, ten, 15 years and each country is going to have its own unique experiment of this. the republics have gone through a much tougher version of this than the monarchies, funny enough. but i hope this is something we all look back five, ten, 15 years from now and say that arab spring is a go

foreign service officer nominated by president obama to be our ambassador to iraq. and i think all of us on the committee are pleased the president has nominated somebody of high caliber, great experience, who is our defense server vanessa the deputy chief of mission in baghdad for the year and previously served as ambassador to jordan and executive assistant to secretary of state, colin powell and condoleezza rice. while america's war has ended in iraq, the struggle for iraq's future obviously has not ended. the violence is down, but al qaeda and iraq remains a very deadly foe and iraq may not capture the jays today headlined. then no one should make the mistake to somehow come to a conclusion that iraq doesn't present extraordinary challenges. this administration has worked tirelessly to ensure that it doesn't become a forgotten front. we put in place a road mac on a browser to have issues. political, economic, educational, scientific and military. our bilateral partnership has potential to contribute, we believe to the stability in the middle east. but iraqi leaders have to decide

mistake to end the war in iraq and bring all of our warriors home. he said it was a mistake that set a mandate for our warriors in afghanistan and bring them home. he i will plied by his speech he is ready to go to war in syria and iran. >> paul: that was vice president joe biden at a campaign stop in pennsylvania suggesting that mitt romney is ready to go to war in iran and syria. it's the theme they are pushing with the president himself getting in on the act. in an interview on 60 minutes. mr. robe responding to criticism said, quote, if governor romney is suggesting we should start another war, he should say so. so rumors of war, dan. what the political strategy here or do you think there is one? >> obviously we are in a moment when everything barack obama says is related to his reelection. so it is with this. a key element of the obama reelection strategy has to do with perceived voter fatigue over wars, iraq and afghanistan. >> paul: tide of war are receding? >> exactly. first thing he said i ended the war in iraq. how he is binding down afghanistan. from that premise he is sugge

what you mean. not exactly what's happening in syria right now in iraq ten years ago when the occupied iraq the u.s. secretary of state visited syria and urged bashar al assad to rupture relations with russia and iran but president assad did not yield to their demands for this reason they started planning an attack against syria seen years ago you know they have taken advantage of the so-called arab spring which has ignited across tunisia egypt libya sudan and i don't even know who will be next probably it will affect saudi arabia and united arab emirates next year because we see something of a snowball effect here that syria is a special case for it is the most diverse multiethnic country where sunni shia alawi and christians have lived side by side. to playing this card. issue to destabilize syria as everybody knows what they did in lebanon twenty or thirty years ago the intended to split the country into small states syria intervened forces into lebanon prevented this from happening so now they're trying to get their vengeance syria reasons preventing the division of lebanon and for

bailout fund for euro zone countries written with debt they had rejected iraq of legal challenges aimed at preventing the crisis fighting tools from becoming a law critics said the planet committed to potentially unlimited funding of eurozone stands by the crisis of the ruling though kept germany's contribution to the rescue fund leaving it to one hundred ninety billion euros political risk consultant john holzman believes the motion is only prolonging europe's suffering. the germans are stirring up hostages to fortune they're going to need more than the five hundred billion euro because italy and spain to some extent certainly spain will need a bailout greece probably will need a third bailout. and then you have to go back to the bundestag because the court capture him in liability one hundred ninety billion euro sounds like a lot of money frankly it's not given the money they're going to need and it's some point somebody in the bow to stop it's going to get up and say this is madness we can no longer pay for the rest of europe you're beginning to see these points of friction coming ou